


Ere the Sun Rises

by DachOsmin



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Forced Marriage, Protectiveness, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-25 23:59:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12047040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Eowyn took a deep breath. “Grima thinks me an untouched treasure to despoil. He wishes to be the first. I would take that victory from him, give it to another.” She bit her lip, staring at her feet. “If you would have me.”





	Ere the Sun Rises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mimm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mimm/gifts).



She came to him with the moonrise, well after the rest of the hall had gone to sleep. The knock on the door was hesitant at first, and then bolder.

Eomer had lain awake for some time, staring up into the shadows of the eaves. He rose, wincing as the soles of his feet touched the cold flagstones of the floor. He eyed the door, and after a moment padded over to it, though not before fetching his sword from its stand and drawing it soundlessly from its sheath. It would be a bold move, sending assassins to meet him in the heart of Edoras. But these were dark times, and the shadow dared more than it had in living memory. Tightening his grip on the haft of the sword, he opened the door a crack and looked into the dark hall beyond.

He blinked. There were no masked assassins or armed men waiting for him. There was only his sister shivering in the hallway, clutching her arms to her chest and glancing from side to side like she feared she might be set upon at any moment. The moonlight fell through the rafters to flicker green on her skin; elsewhere the planes of her face were cast in inky shadow. She looked like some wraith come in from the moors or an elf queen from a distant age.

He was surprised to see her. She had come often to chambers when they were both children. They would build fortresses from his blankets, giggling into the pillows. That was before their parents had died. She had not come in a long time.

Well, no matter why she had come. She was welcome here at any hour, and would be as long as they both lived.

Lowering his sword, he opened the door wordlessly and bade her come inside with a tilt of his head.

Eowyn walked in quickly. He shut and after a moment of hesitation, bolted the door behind her.

She waited for him to turn and face her before speaking. “I am to wed Grima on the morn,” she said without preamble, spitting the words like they were sour in her mouth.

Eomer inhaled sharply. The thought turned his stomach: Wormtongue’s putrid breath on her body, those gnarled fingers touching her, hurting her- “I will gut him,” he growled, hand clenching around the haft of his sword. “I will run him through-“

She cut him off with a shake of her head. “No! I will not be the reason the line of Eorl ends.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I will not be the cause of your death.”

He took a breath. “Then come away with me. We can muster at dawn; there are many still loyal. There are places we can go-“

But once again she shook her head. “I will not abandon the halls of our fathers to that snake.”

“Uncle-“

Her eyes flashed in the moon-limned dark. “He dies the minute we leave. And who do you think will rule then?”

They were the last, he realized, and suddenly saw the weight of that knowledge on her shoulders. Their uncle, lost in whatever waking dream that had ensnared him, did not count.

“The burden is too great for you to bear.” His lovely sister with a smile like summer. She was born for laughter and sunlight on her hair. He’d imagined some hazy prince for her, someone who would sing to her and bring her wildflowers. Not this. Never this.

She bristled then, drawing herself up to glare at him. “You think I cannot do it? I am a shieldmaiden of Rohan, I fear neither death nor pain. There are worse fates than- than this-“ Her voice broke and he saw then, how fragile she was, that for all her deadened calm she was balancing on the edge of a knife. He took her hands in his and drew her close, murmuring nonsense into her hair like he might to a spooked pony.

“I know you can do it,” he said at last, once her breathing had evened out and she was no longer shaking. “But you never should have had to.”

“There are many things that should never have come to pass,” she murmured into the crook of his neck. “And yet.”

He thought of the shadow in the east, growing bolder every year. He thought of Wormtongue’s malingering stare; the way he eyed the back of Eowyn’s neck and the curve of her waist when he thought she wasn’t looking. He thought of the graves of their parents long overgrown, the grave of their cousin, newly built, the grave of their uncle, soon to come. If he did what every bone in his body wished, if he ran Wormtongue through with his sword, they would kill him. And Eowyn would sing his body to sleep under the white flowers of Cymbeline. But who would sing for her? He wouldn’t leave her here in the darkness alone. He couldn’t.

So instead he cleared the bloodlust from his throat, stroked a hand over the fall of her hair. “What would you have me do?” he asked, and if the anguish was still in the eddies of his voice she had the grace not to mention it.

“It is… much to ask,” she said at length.

“Anything I have, I freely offer.” Would that he had more.

She took a deep breath. “He thinks me an untouched treasure to despoil. He wishes to be the first. I would take that victory from him, give it to another.” She bit her lip, staring at her feet. “If you would have me.”

It took him a moment to divine her meaning. And then he understood, and felt his cheeks heat in the dark. “Surely- surely there is someone else?”

She tensed. “You would not have me? I am no beauty, but-“

“You are beauty incarnate; you are everything fair under the sun, sister,” he said, the last word uneasy on his tongue. “But surely there is someone you care for who would serve you better?”

“There is no one, _brother,”_ she said like a challenge. _“_ No one I can trust.”

Such things were against the laws of men; the harpists sung lays of the tragedies that befell men that slept with their own blood. But their life was already a tragedy.

He pulled back so that he could see her properly in the moonlight. She raised her eyes to him, and there he could see the fear of rejection and tremulous hope mixed in equal measure. He raised his hands to cup the side of her face, stroking his thumbs down her cheeks. And then he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers, soft and fleeting like a whisper, before pulling away.

“You are sure?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

He did not ask again. He pulled her close and pressed his lips to the column of her neck, each kiss a silent prayer against her skin. She was pliant in his arms, her hands knotting in the fabric of his shift as she let out silent gasps.

The guilt was still there, bitter in his mouth, but a fierce pride subsumed it. He would give her this gift: one night of forgetfulness before the harsh light of morning.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” he murmured against the shell of her ear, smoothing his hand over the front of her dress, feeling as her nipples hardened at the touch.

She pulled back with a huff of laughter and undid the cords of her kirtle with practiced hands before starting on the laces of her shift. The cloth fell away from her, layer by layer, puddling on the floor around her feet.

She took one hesitant step backwards, and he could not help the choked sound that the sight wrung from him.

He was well acquainted with the bodies of women. There had been the eager farmers daughters that he had bedded in barn lofts across the Westfold, smelling of sweet straw and tasting of laughter. There had been the whores of the taverns and dice halls of Edoras. But never a woman like her.

Her skin was milk-white, glowing in the pale light of the moon like white opal. Her hair fell like quicksilver to cover the planes of her shoulders and chest. Her breasts, small and perfect, were just visible through the weight of her tresses.

She looked up at him through the fall of her hair, biting her lip. There was trepidation in her eyes and a shiver in her body that did not come from the cold. She looked at him as if she were afraid. As if she worried he would not like what he saw, and Eomer was seized with the need to wrap her in his arms, to protect her, to touch every part of her.

He stepped up to her and kissed her thrice: once on her brow, once on her parted lips, and a third time against the pulse point of her neck. “You are perfect,” he whispered.

He felt her relax against him. “And you are slow,” she whispered back, a smile on her lips. “Attend me before I die of the wait.”

He did as she bid. He smoothed his hands over her body with a deep reverence. He imagined himself building her armor for the battle ahead, not with leather or steel, but with the slide of his hands over her skin. Everywhere he touched was one more layer between her and Grima. Each place he stroked her, each gasp he wrung from her, each inch of her skin that trembled at feeling the hand of another for the first time- these were the things he was holding in trust for her. Grima would never have them.

It would have to be enough.


End file.
